DIY Greenhouse On A Budget

Believe it or not, the healthy food craze is contributing a great deal to the high demand for greenhouses today. You see, because of this trend, people are starting to grow plants in their backyards again and most of these backyard gardeners prefer to plant produce in a greenhouse.

Building greenhouses is usually expensive, but there are 2 alternatives for gardeners on a budget. First is to look ask for scraps from neighbours and builders, and the second is to convert old plastic bottles into a greenhouse!

For the first solution, you’ll only need £100 and a lot of confidence. In this method, you’ll have to ‘skip’ for scrap materials. When you say skipping, this means that you’ll have to go around your neighbourhood and ask your neighbours for materials that they no longer need.

Asking your neighbours for something can be intimidating for a lot of people. But most of the time, your neighbours won’t mind giving away stuff lying around their garage, especially when you ask them politely. My friend usually asks builders for their skips and when he knocks on their door, he always asks them this question – “If you are throwing that out, can I take it?” And four times out of five, they say yes!

Through skipping you’ll have to source sheets of the thick polystyrene foil-backed insulation boards (which will be used to insulate the weatherboard sides of the greenhouse), old windows, and a bird feeder. You’ll then use your £100 budget to buy weatherboards to part-clad the sides, six 100mm x 100mm (4in x 4in) posts, a door latch, and paint.

A little caveat: building a greenhouse with this method isn’t for the impatient! It takes months to complete, because your schedule will depend on the availability of skipped materials.

The other method for building a greenhouse from scraps is through collecting old plastic bottles.

You’ll need about 1,500 of these to complete your greenhouse

For this project, it’s advisable to use 2 litre plastic bottles, and you’ll need to collect 1,500 of these bottles to make a large greenhouse. I know this seems like a ton of bottles, but once you get in the habit of collecting them and start a pile, they’ll add up before you know it. To keep things organised, you may want to purchase those plastic bins for storage.

Make sure to prep your bottles before you start construction. Soak the bottles in warm soapy water then cut the top and bottom parts.

Next step is to plant 4”x4” posts to the ground. This will serve as the structure’s corners. 2”x2” timber, on the other hand, will be used for the frames. Don’t forget to put mulch around and inside the lot to prevent weed from growing the area.

After that, stack the bottles on top of each other using a garden cane. The finished product should look like a long tube with both ends of the cane poking out of a bottle top. Place these tubes side by side on the frames. Attach both ends of the tubes on the frames using a stapler. You can staple as many tubes into the frames until it’s filled.

As a final step, screw in the frames and roof into the 4 posts. Voila! You have your very own green house!

I hope today’s topic inspired you to grow a garden in your DIY greenhouse! And if you want to learn about new DIY projects just leave a comment below. See you on my next post!